Subscription

Blogdash

American Bedu has been running since 2006, posting daily about topics related to Saudi-Arabia. American Bedu has created a highly valuable and versatile source of information about the Kingdom online. Her candid writing style and diplomatic point of view that shines through her articles have become well known throughout the internet community. American Bedu site is one of the most popular blogs on Saudi-Arabia of all time. There has never been serious copyright violation cases, up until now.

It has come to the attention of American Bedu last week that a blog called Desert Pill Pusher has been using articles from AB without permission and posting them as their own.The blogger Sumayya Mehtar is a Riyadh expatriate and her blog has been running for over a year with the plagiarized content. Not only is this unscrupulous blogger copy pasting text, but altering the articles to sound like she in fact experienced them and then wrote them herself. One can also notice some of the plagiarized posts have images added to them in which she appears to be posing at the very location of her plagiarized post. Would it not be easier to just write the post by herself? This is called plagiarism and content theft.

The author of the plagiarizing blog has also taken material from several other bloggers in the Saudi blogosphere including Susie of Arabia, Blue Abaya, Saudi Jeans, A Canadian in Riyadh and Crossroads Arabia, to name a few. She has even used newspaper articles and works of journalists passing them on as her own without including any references, links or mention of where the articles came form. Naturally when publishing the work of others, even if adorned with trackbacks and mention of sources, it should be done only after having received permission from the original author to use the content. The author has however claimed ignorance to the existence of such rules. For someone who studied pharmacy at university level to claim not be aware of this very basic knowledge seems strange and down right inconceivable. It is something we learn in elementary school, do not steal from others.

Desert Pill Pusher runs Google Adsense on it which means that the blogger has earned at least some form of compensation from the stolen work. When a blogger creates duplicate content, the value of the site and her ranking increases. This might even result in the plagiarizing site showing up before the original one on a Google search, naturally causing more traffic to that site. One would think it’s a self evident fact not to attempt earning money off of other people’s hard work.

Fellow blogger Layla from Blue Abaya was one of the first bloggers to discover this blog by accident. Layla found several of her own articles blatantly plagiarized to sound as if the Desert pill Pusher had herself experienced the situation. In Layla’s article about visitors to the hospital, which was the first blog post to appear on DP, words such as “in Finland we” were simply changed to “in South-Africa we” making it clear the intention was to pass the content on as her own. Layla wrote in this post how to her astonishment she even found a part of her work used by Sumayya Mehtar to write a newspaper article with the same title as hers. The article was published in a South African publication called Lenasia times. In that very article Mehtar had also plagiarized from Susie of Arabia, journalist Caryle Murphy from the National and the author Bassma Al Toaimi from Destination Jeddah. Lenasia times.

Another magazine Sumayya Mehtar has written for is the Sandscript, published by the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. It appears that her article titled “Prescription Drug Addiction” was also mostly plagiarized and has been pulled from three different sources:
Oprah: Prescription-Drug-Addiction
article: prescription-drug-addiction-abuse-and-treatment
hawaii island recovery.com: drugprescription addiction treatment
After being exposed, Sumayya quickly removed some articles and has been placing links after some posts to make it seem as if permission was acquired. She has issued statements and apology saying she did not understand what she was doing was wrong. Her excuse of not knowing she was plagiarizing and stealing content seem absurd. Claiming that undisclosed persons simply emailed articles to her which she then posted, unknowing that she was causing any harm or doing wrong sounds equally dubious and one wonders how the published newspaper articles happened to come upon her.

Thankfully the rest of the Saudi blogosphere is supportive and respectful of one another, and bloggers have now been joining forces to stop this. It has been suggested that the entire site be taken down because it is simply too infested with plagiarized content and making money based on theft. If she still wishes to continue blogging, the most honorable thing to do would be to start a new blog and never plagiarize content again.

In addition to these the Desert Pill Pusher site still contains over 30 plagiarized articles on it.

AN

Edit:

AN sent us the follow up, The Blogger Team agrees with us, a lot of the plagiarized content has been removed. Many thanks to the bloggers who have put in so much work and effort into following up on this infringement of copyright, which protects and benefits us all.

Like this:

Related

58 Responses

She also stole one of my cartoons. What I think makes it really bad is that she earns money from plagiarizing. Ànd… that she makes out these stolen articles to have been her own experiences?!?!?!?
What an awful thing to do!
The last one is typical though: I think she is a compulsive liar.

*The compulsive liar may not be completely rooted in reality, believing the lies they tell, often in an effort to remedy low self esteem. Unlike telling a few fibs here and there, or slightly exaggerating the truth once in a while, the pathological liar lies about literally every aspect of his or her life. The pathological liar feels that every bit of communication has strategic meaning positioned for his or her gain.*

I think she will be very upset and considers herself a victim now her nefarious practices have come out. She might even lash out with hate campaigns against the people who called her out on her stealing.

Yes; I agree with you, Aafke. I did receive a contritely worded email of apology filled with remorse but also ending with all the health problems she is now having. I feel compassion and can forgive but that does not mean just ignore. I view her as an attention seeker, especially with the posts flaunting her Ramadan photo shoot and then I think she is too free about opinions and experiences having to do with real people and medical problems. She’s looking for herself, has an agenda and definitely wants attention brought to herself.

Sadly, there is such an abundance of data on and about Saudi that there is no need to steal. Hmmmmm….she has stolen, blatantly. She should be watchful that someone does not demand her left hand.

Shame, shame on her. She brings down the blogosphere, Muslim women, writers, allegedly educated professionals…she claims that she was sent articles to publish. la howla qota la billah. None of us were born yesterday.

well, this is American Bedu sleuth here… seems that this inscrupulous blogger is following her established protocol in her response to the blogosphere with emails. She is also sending us “cut and paste” emails containing the same message of alleged remorse and trauma and pain she now has. Yet when she is asked to remove the posts and stop with the adsense she becames outraged and states how her blog is also to make money. hmmmm…. can anyone else say double standard?

Even the name of her blog is one that cries out for attention. I do plea that American Bedu bloggers will stay away from this blog. And I do not believe I’ve ever made such a recommendation against an individual before. She does not even qualify in my mind as a blogger. Just an impervious interloper.

As a person, and fellow blogger, I always make sure that I mention the name of the blog if I repost anything. I have found the blogs mentioned in AB post as a wealth of information on making my decision to come to Saudi Arabia.

I will make sure that this site is not mentioned anywhere on my blog .

And I agree that the name says so much about the person and their character…

Please let us know if there is anything we can do to get this blog taken down.

[…] other sources and publish it as their own. As recent as today this happened to a fellow-blogger, American Bedu. She’s gone into great detail about how not only stealing other’s content is a crime, […]

She’s out for attention and that’s it. If she was truly surprised by the fact that plagiarism is wrong and illegal, she would have taken down the articles. Even today she’s posted an article that is simply 3 different articles cut up and pasted together. She’s posted the sources this time, but didn’t mention that they’re not just sources…they are the actual articles that she’s stitched together as her “own”. Sick.

Her emails asking for forgiveness are also pasted copycats to those of whose articles she has pillaged. Once we have been less than polite in pure forgive and use, she gets defensive and gives lines of woe and how this experience is making her physically ill….but not too ill to do the right thing and step down and start from scratch in a reputable and professional manner that one would anticipate from an honorable person who would take pride in hard work and a job well done. I see a baby girl who wants an easy way for fame and notoriety in a new land and willing to use the right ‘buzz words’ and little else to get what she wants.

The title of the blog is offensive. The large attention to self detail and expression is beyond narcissistic. This one got me riled.

Well…in case there was any wonder, I guess readers are all getting a true taste of the spirit and closeness of the Saudi blogosphere. Hell hath no fury like a female Saudi blogger scorned! (smile)

My advise is to make your discernment known. This is supposedly a professional Muslim female expatriate who claims to be too naive to have known the seriousness of her multitude of infractions…hmmmm…. not the type of person I’d want as a pharmacist overseeing my well being and medications…… I have strongly urged her to shut down her site and redo it properly with her own original content and thereby not only make restitution but take pride in HER own original work well done. The response was lackluster and mentioned how it would be too hard, too much work and that her blog is just getting recognized and making money with AdSense. She also claims to now have physical health issues from her ordeal.

We have a little girl on the blogosphere who is crying for attention even if it is coming in a negative manner. She wants to be noticed. She is a single expat Muslim woman away from home and has some grand illusions on what she sees her life and role to be in Saudi Arabia.

Rather than intending to be mean, I am giving a dose of tough Mother Bedu love that she should be a positive example to other expat women in the Kingdom, Muslim expat women in the Kingdom, an example to Saudi women in the Kingdom and last but not least, to demonstrate pride in her herself and her own initiatives which can be building blocks of success for other Muslim women. Sadly…she does not get that yet.

Plagarism is taught in school . int he east, west and everywhere. taking something not yours is wrong, this is taught in every home by every parent , all i can say is these lessons sink into some and doesn’t into others. I also noticed Aafke’s art and for someone who is artistically challenged — Me ,, i felt bad, it takes a lot of skill to write, draw, paint or almost do anything. we should encourage that not steal it. but hopefully she will learn her lesson and shut that down or delete the old posts.
i don’t see where being muslim comes into all this. stealing is universally wrong 🙂

yes; anyone can complain to google and many of the other organizations such as king faisal specialist hospital, public relations; ministry of health in saudi arabia and the ministry of education. it does not hurt to protest to blogger which is the blogging platform and even the isp that is hosting her blog from saudi.

you are absolutely write radha. plagarism is a form of theft which in some countries is punishable by removing the right hand….

No need to be paranoid Coolred, relax…. Carol is not very well, but at least she is back on line! Why not give her a call and verify it’s the real Carol!

Carol, I am happy to see you are well enough to be commenting again, and that you are posting articles again!

I do get my stuff stolen of course, both posts and artwork has been stolen from time to time. they pop up here and there, but this is something quite insane, an entire blog composed of stolen stuff, and the owner making money out of it!
And I checked the about page:
OMG literally paste copied from bedu! I can’t believe it!
Apparently she can write, we know she’s at least literate…. she does write whining posts about how she is not to blame for her thieving and making money out of other peoples work….
But she can’t even be bothered to write an ”about page” herself???
This must be an incredibly lazy person. I am glad she is far away and there’s no chance of her making up a prescription for me.

yes…it really is me and please forgive my lack of proper grammar at the moment and more wordy posts. it does feel good to be back online again. when you see my upcoming post you’ll learn about my recent journey. it’s all forward moving from here.

That whole thing is really weird. It’s not like it’s that hard to write an “about me” section. And making money off of another person’s work is just wrong on so many levels. I guess karma is finding the person now. It’s just all very weird that someone would want or think of doing that in the first place. There’s not even any grey area in the matter. It’s not as if she has a link to your blog, etc. posted and she’s simply directing people to your (and others’) page(s). She literally stole information and claimed it as her own.

Even the about section!! I am speechless..How did that randomly come upon her in an email??
In one of her emails to me Sumayya even accused Carol herself for plagiarizing a post..

She has started some sort of hate campaign against me on her blog telling all sorts of lies about me..which is not surprising, she has to have someone to drag down or blame this on, and I happened to be the one who stumbled upon the fraud site first and then write about it. She asked me to remove the post many times and possibly got upset that I never did.

what she is doing to you is terrible and slanderous. yes; she has wanted me to remove the post as well as asked that “since we chatted on email” could she also remove my negative comments from her blog too.

i agree with aafke’s assessment of her character and have some additional views too. she is purposely wishing to draw attention to herself and if you read more about her, she takes great pride in the heritage and “integrity” of her family and their proficiency in writing and good works.

she speaks very highly of susie khalil in her emails but i also know susie has such a generous and warm heart and is likely giving her much motherly advice whereas i guess everyone else is seeing my ‘crochety granny bedu’ side at the moment in regards to this issue.

People who really do good works usually have high ethics as well.
They would not try to gain money by copying other peoples work.
So I have my doubts about the charity claim.
It wasn’t karma which got at her, it was Layla. That’s worse!
😈

She’s been deleting comments on her site right and left. Including a few of mine. She also didn’t write her “Islam” section. I wonder if she wrote anything.
She’s written a new apology post on how wrong she was. But she needs to shut down and clean up the site if she really means it. And she keeps avoiding that. And only acknowledges the stuff she’s stolen after someone else notices it is.

I will take it that every single article, every page, is taken from somebody else. A lot of bloggers may take a bit out of a newspaper article, (and put up the source) but the fact that she purposefully tries to make out they are her own, and inserts herself into the articles, proves that this it plain, intentional theft. Nothing else.

I believe nothing she claims, because everything which can be verified turns out to be a lie. I do think she has a mental condition which is called ”compulsive liar”. There’s nothing wrong with her health, only her mental condition. Everything a compulsive liar tells you is a lie. They desperately need to be the center of attention. They become apologetic when they are found out, but always put the blame on somebody else, it’s never their fault. They lie about their background, their successes, everything is exaggerated. If their lies fly up they become very nasty, especially against the person who uncovered their lies. It is still never their own fault.

I have met two of them on blogsphere a few years before. Blogging is an ideal environment for them as it is difficult to find them out. But they always overdo it in some way and show their wonky mental state.

She was not clever either, by stealing content from some of the best known, and biggest Saudi blogs. This was bound to come out sooner or later

that looks like her modus operandi to me, sandy. it’s not a full lesson learned. personally, id’ write letters to major maedia if i were her with a sincere apology and lesson learned in addition to taking down and restarting the web site. sadly i thinkn she is still relishing in this newfound attention and notiroriety.

Can I just say OMG! I can’t believe it, she’s plaigiarised the most popular Saudi blogs out there, and is earning money from it , the blog should be shut down it’s not fair to the original bloggers.

How can she possible say she didnt know what she was doing? Everyone learns about how wrong internet plaigarism is in school these days!

She thought she found a short-cut to get famous, well I hope she learns her lesson that we bloggers know how to fight for our rights!

Uff to think that I’d previously read some of her posts and was rather impressed by her experiences, I think the photos, helped to reinforce the authenticity of the post 😦 and i’m not a very regular follower of any blog so I wouldnt have spotted the plaigarism either.

thank you for sharing your perspective, Misha. i will have a new post coming out soon appealing to what actions i’d like to see american bedu readers and other readers take towards getting this blog closed.

I hope you are feeling better. After reading your last post concerning your later husband, I really do pray you get better inshallah.

At Everyone Else
I think it is fair to say that when a person makes a mistake in public he or she must be corrected in public because the harm done was not at just one person but the entire public.

This is a good opportunity to understand why in Islam when a person steals his or her hand is cut in public in order to deter the same thing happening.

The damage done to the whole is limited. In case you are wondering how barbaric this act is, look into the actual recorded books of Islamic rulings and you’ll find that not more than 200 hands were cut off in the entire history of Islamic ruling.

The application of the rule always outweighs what people say about the past and it is provable. History can be disputable in this case therefore cannot be used.

Compare this to modern day prisons today in ANY part of the UNIVERSE! It;s not just the punishment that is bad, it is how we live that is also bad.

Now contrast this.
Having said that, the blogger does not deserve to have her hands chopped off 🙂 but I think we should show some mercy because when a person does something wrong, is corrected, accepts it, then we should also realize one day we could make similar or even worse mistakes.

What the blogger did was wrong, and I’m sure she has learnt her lesson. The posts here also show a real sincerity and comradeship towards defending what is right.

thank you ibrahim for your comment. i respect your opinoin but may not agree completely with all your words. this is because of separate emails i have received which have not indicated a sense of true remorse but rather an attempt to want ME to become the great saviour of her and her blog and personal raminifcations of her actions. I am pushing the hard love manner towards reconciliation and putting a situation right.

the lack of ethics, honor and integrity in stealing my hard written words while i was going through treatment only make me wonder more how else this person has lived her life. given the position she claims t o hold, she would have had to write many papers in order to get her professional qualifications. how did she do that? are they legit? how does one know she has authentic credentials? i would not want a pharmacist claiming to me ‘oh, i did not know so please forgive me.’

i do not suggest cutting off a hand. i agree that is extreme. however, i think this young woman needs to gracefully step down from the blogosphere and focus inwardly on herself and her life. just the name of her late blog sends a certain message with insights of her and her character and to me, deeply insulting to saudi arabia and the industry she was hired to support and protect.

Ibrahim…200 hands chopped all togethr…hmmmm. fear of something being chopped is hardly an effective deterrant…ask those with both hands but no head. How many heads have been chopped off in Islamic recorded history.

I couldn’t agree more. And all the people here would sympathize with you. My only concern is the rest of us who do not know the details or keep up with what’s going on, should have a mind set.

Who knows , maybe this is what the ramifications of online relationships breed. We need to be more aware like the old Jewish saying beware your words, they can remain and have long lasting effects.

Now interestingly, the inward and other personality disorders highlighted by this incident point to two things for me anyway,
people from Asia for some reason really find it hard to apologise. This is why I mentioned the harsh Islamic rule for what cold hearted people do to others. By Asia I mean those affected by Asian Culure.

You’ve lived in Saudi Arabia how many times have you been driven almost to death on the road, and not even a simple apology for what was done to you. I know this is generalizing, but you need to know sincerity comes from sincere people. If it does not exist, the law makes it exist. If you can’t have, cherish those moments you came into contact with it.

You see it in kids for instance. Their entire demeanure tells you when they are wrong.

my personal opinion if that if she is wise, she will remove herself from the blogosphere and focus on other aspects of herself and her life and what it means to be a responsible female expat representative in the Kingdom. Whether an expat wishes or not, he or she is a representative of his/her country and heritage.

First of all the word ‘stupid’ comes to mind. What was she thinking? Yes, the lack of ethics, honor and integrity are bad enough but stupidity is the nail in the coffin, always. It is a fatal combination.

Red, I am guessing I that someone with a lot of time on his hands (!) added up the number of hands laying around on the ground in the text of the hadith, Tabari, Kathir, Hisham and so on. Of course, the question is if one hand counts as one person or does it take two severed members to count as a job well done. Maybe one head counts as two hands, even if intact (the hands!) . This number is kind of like the “only 692 people killed” by Mohammed in his 10 years of 50-some raids and dozen battles. No the 692 is not the real number but I have seen figures like it on Islamic websites to “prove” Islam and Mohammad are peaceful.

Ibrahim, oh yah, that cutting off hands thing really worked so well that there is no theft in Islamic hands, I mean lands. I really doubt the “only 200 thing’ statistic also because: a) it doesn’t seem right for 1400 years and b) if you refer to the hadith / early histories only (see above), you must talk into the morality of all actions therein and no Muslim will carry that water bag. You cannot take one fact from those writings without opening yourself to the implications of the actions therein, which you will of course choose to ignore. The reason I made this comment, Ibrahim, is because you seem to want to proclaim superior Islamic morals (“the best of people”) over us infidels, when I see little morality in Islam, just rituals and silly rules.

That’s OK, Ibrahim. Actually Kactuz is an abbreviated from the Polish and believe me, you don’t want to mess with Polish names. I should have taken a nice Brazilian handle (Gostozao or maybe Jacare) or even a respectable one like Abraham/Ibrahim. The trouble with Ibrahim in English is it can’t be nicked well. Honest Abe sounds ok, Honest Ib leave a little to be desired – but I am not saying you are not honest – just trying a little humor on you. Not good at that either!

I understand that plagiarism is copying another author’s content without permission. But there are some gray areas. Is it the same when one makes some changes to the text and then uses them. We do this all the time, for example, in school projects, reports …etc, and usually students do not contact the authors. So is this same as plagiarism? Yes there are references but the whole work cannot be referenced.

Over the years I have been commenting on this blog where I have done researches. For the last couple of years I was thinking to compile only my comments and use them as they are. (Only my comments). I guess this does not fall under plagiarism, does it?

Is this wrong? I want to make sure of this before I actually start on this project. The reason why I am doing this is because it was my intention to do so from the beginning prior to posting them here. Secondly I have spent days on certain comments so I do not want my work to go wasted. The same goees for my story that I have contributed here in the “complete the story” posts.

Sarah, your own comments are your own, by definition you cannot ”plagiarize” yourself.
If you were to do what Desert pill was doing, paste copying Carols stories, insert your own name here and there to make it look as if it happened to you and if you wrote it, then you are not only stealing, you are deceiving your readers as well, it’s double bad.

If you make up invented stories about yourself and present them as true you are deceiving.
If you reuse your own writing that’s fine.

I have written one or two brilliant comments (even more brilliant than usual) which I decided I wanted to use for a blog post on my own blog. The ”black hand” was one of those.

Aafke-Art,
Thanks for clarifying that. I suppose it depends on intention. I agree that Desert Pill was deceiving her readers as well as stealing from others. And to think that she was donating the money she earned to the cleaning staff! Some kind of modern day Robin Hood.

Actually my blog was set up on 2002 but in those days there were no such as “blogs” as we have them now so I used to write on a regular website – and not very often. Now I am in the process on combining all my posts into one platform.

Sarah, she claims she is donating the money. But as she is a proven liar and seems to have no sense of ethics or morals, I doubt this part of her tales also.
A compulsive liar will lie about everything. Anything which will make her look more special and admirable will be invented and embellished,
That is a very typical thing they do btw. You will find they will tell you the same story again and again if you keep being interested and listen with rapt attention, every time it will be more fantastic and wonderful.

i agree with aafke she is likely a compulsive liar and keen to bring attention to herself. all i can do at this point is believe she will at some point in time learn her lessons and ethics. her actions saddened and disapointed me. i guess i like to always believe in the overall good first.

Yes, I agree too. Its too easy to lie about donating money. When some commentator called out on her about her claims, she said she is willing to give the number of the cleaning staff who will confirm her claims. Hmmm? One lie leads to another cover up lie.

[…] other well known Saudi bloggers experienced having their individual blogs rape and pillaged as an unscrupulous blogger freely chose their original material to repost on another blog. In fact, material from American […]

[…] Speaking of theft, stealing, dishonesty and greed..Check out American Bedu’s post about the plagiarism scandal Sumayah Mehtar has created in the blogosphere: http://americanbedu.com/2012/09/07/american-bedu-plagiarized/ […]